A Canterbury driver says he was 'close to death' with this near miss. Video / Supplied
Heart beating fast, hands trembling, anger and adrenaline are the words a Canterbury father described himself feeling after a near-death experience.
Ravi Prasad was collecting farming supplies, driving through the country roads of Darfield on Tuesday when a large ute almost collided with his vehicle.
Captured on his car’s dashcam,Prasad was driving towards an intersection when a blue ute suddenly appeared to his left, careening in front of him at full speed.
The ute clearly ignores any give-way requirements and zooms past Prasad - avoiding a collision with his car by what seems like centimetres.
Prasad was driving towards an intersection when a blue ute suddenly appeared to his left, careening in front of him at full speed. Photo / Supplied
Footage shows Prasad pull over to the side of the road to process what he’d just encountered, before turning around to follow the ute to call out the driver’s actions.
Prasad told the Herald the ute was travelling at “very fast” speeds, making it difficult to keep up with them.
“When I pulled ahead of them the driver pulled into a driveway, so I followed them again and caught up with them,” he said.
“I asked them ‘why didn’t you stop at the give way?’, they said ‘where’? It seemed they were local, so they should know the roads well. I told them we could both be dead, I told her ‘I don’t wanna die yet, I’ve got a family to look after’.”
Prasad told the Herald the ute was travelling at “very fast” speeds. Photo / Supplied
According to Prasad, all he could imagine was his 1-year-old daughter growing up without a father “because of one mistake”.
“I was so overwhelmed that I had to remove myself from that situation and told [the driver] I’ve got all footage on camera.”
The footage has since been handed to local police, who had nothing further to add to the incident.
Prasad said the support from the Darfield community has been strong after he posted the footage on a local community page.
Only a few years earlier, according to what locals told Prasad, a serious crash had occurred at the same intersection of Clinton Rd and Greendale Rd.
It prompted him to think there was an issue with the turn.
When approached by the Herald about ongoing poor driver behaviour on rural roads in Selwyn, district councillor Elizabeth Mundt said it’s been a focal point for the local council.
She pointed to the council’s Snap, Send, Solve phone app which people can use to identify intersections in need of maintenance.
These issues could include deterioration of paint marking stop lines, missing signage or overgrown hedges obscuring signs telling drivers to stop.
“It’s easy for people to download. Of course, the council can’t monitor every individual intersection,” said Mundt.
